That a great majority of those statesmen who conducted the opposition would deprecate such a result, furnished no security against it.

When the physical force of a nation usurps the place of its wisdom, those who have produced such a state of things no longer control it.
[Footnote 17: A well known term designating the most violent party in France.] These apprehensions, whether well or ill founded, produced in those who felt them, an increased solicitude for the preservation of peace.
Their aid was not requisite to confirm the judgment of the President on this interesting subject.

Fixed in his purpose of maintaining the neutrality of the United States, until the aggressions of a foreign power should clearly render neutrality incompatible with honour; and conceiving, from the last advices received from England, that the differences between the two nations had not yet attained that point, he determined to make one decisive effort, which should either remove the ostensible causes of quarrel, or demonstrate the indisposition of Great Britain to remove them.

This determination was executed by the nomination of an envoy extraordinary to his Britannic majesty, which was announced to the senate on the 16th of April in the following terms: "The communications which I have made to you during your present session, from the despatches of our minister in London, contain a serious aspect of our affairs with Great Britain.

But as peace ought to be pursued with unremitted zeal, before the last resource which has so often been the scourge of nations, and can not fail to check the advanced prosperity of the United States, is contemplated, I have thought proper to nominate, and do hereby nominate John Jay, as envoy extraordinary of the United States, to his Britannic majesty.
[Sidenote: Mr.Jay appointed envoy extraordinary to Great Britain.] "My confidence in our minister plenipotentiary in London continues undiminished.